Escape

The wind is chiming on a slightly cooler afternoon. Fall has just hit this neighborhood, and the wind chimes bring a slight glow to this neck of the woods. The small children leaving the bus, race to the front door to get their bikes and roam along the streets as a daily ritual. It's almost the time of year you smell pies baking in a windowsill for them to be possibly stolen by sticky fingers and a hungry belly.

The mailman tips his hat at he walks on by - no mail today. Not a strange odyssey since no one who ever know me knows where I live.

I sip the sweet tea in the glass on my left and shrug a cold chill that runs down my back. My hair is pulled back into a bun and my long dress's hem has caught up the slight dirt beneath the swing.

I pull my cardigan close - there is never any mail anyways. Most people don't notice. But I do keep to myself quite often.

I'm in love with the picturesque place they sent me too. A city that I never knew existed until I had received the details.

A small paper with an address and a name. A passport and a id card with a photo that barely looks like the old me.

I grow weary now thinking of all the nights I had stayed up and waited for the relief of death. I had always thought it'd be much more violent in his hands than to be shuttle out of state into a town with no one to talk to about my former life or the people in it.

Instead, I draw peace of mind in that those who may have helped me escape what would have surely been a horrific accident as the news would relay. I am comforted to know that regardless of what they said happened, no one here knows me as anything other than a simple retired school teacher. Who enjoys a sweet tea and a couple of moments on the porch swing before the coolness gets to me.

The children have turned the corner, and I wave at my neighbor politely as they walk to their mailbox.

It's almost time to start making dinner. For one. But one is what I was used too. A life with someone who was never physically or emotionally present, you begin to realize that you really are only cooking for one.

I stood up, stretching my legs slightly. Old bones seem to never let go of the chill in the air during these months.

I take one final survey of this cul-de-sac and bet my lucky stars on the peace within that has continually started to grow outwardly.

I am safe, and when I go to sleep - I have no qualms whether or not I will wake up. I'm just glad that either way, it'll be with a solemn choice that it was mine, and my time.

Another sip of tea before locking the door. Goodnight to all the folks who had to choice but to run. Run and live another life. Lord knows, it's not safe outside.